When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh the doxy* over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o'the year
For the red blood reigns in the winter's
pale*.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh the sweet birds, O how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

Thus Autolycus announces his membership in the fraternity
of vagabonds, as he enters in The Winter's Tale
(4.3.1-8). He sells trinkets and ballads--and cuts purses at
the Shepherd's sheep-shearing festival, an activity he says
himself would be punished by hanging. Yet he is a wonderful
and sympathetic stage presence, by no means a
villain.

"Figging law"--one of the "eight laws of villainy" revealed
in Robert
Greene's pamphlet, A Notable
Discovery of Cozenage--covers the activities of
cutpurses and pickpockets. Greene offers a dictionary of
their terms:

"The cutpurse, a nip;
He that is half with him, the snap;
The knife, the cuttle-bung;
The pickpocket, a foin;
He that faceth the man [acts as a decoy], the
stale;
Taking the purse, drawing;
Spying of him, smoking;
The purse, the bung;
The money, the shells;
The act doing, striking."

Footnotes

Pale Doxies?

Literally a fence or enclosure, but there is also a pun on
winter's pale complexion.

Greene's "figging law"

"Figging law"--one of the "eight laws of villainy" revealed
in Robert
Greene's pamphlet, A Notable
Discovery of Cozenage--covers the activities of
cutpurses and pickpockets. Greene offers a dictionary of
their terms:

"The cutpurse, a nip;
He that is half with him, the snap;
The knife, the cuttle-bung;
The pickpocket, a foin;
He that faceth the man [acts as a decoy], the
stale;
Taking the purse, drawing;
Spying of him, smoking;
The purse, the bung;
The money, the shells;
The act doing, striking."